


The Leopard Incident Does Not Exist

by Aposiopesis



Category: Welcome to Night Vale
Genre: Canon-Typical Mortality Rate of the NVCR Internship Program, Canon-Typical Violence, Definitely Not Pyrokinetic Leopards, Early in Canon, Episode Style, Fake Episode, Flower Tattooing, M/M, Minor Character Death, Mostly Not Morbid
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-12-16
Updated: 2018-12-16
Packaged: 2019-09-20 05:01:44
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,175
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17016237
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Aposiopesis/pseuds/Aposiopesis
Summary: Old Town may still be covered in claw marks and fire, but absolutely nothing happened last week. Nothing, you hear? More importantly, Cecil just went on another date with our favorite scientist.





	The Leopard Incident Does Not Exist

**Author's Note:**

> Additional warnings: food, blood, mention of insects, mention of chemical weapons. Also the general paranoia/dissociation/misinformation miasma that comes with the universe. Again, all pretty canon-typical.

They say it is better to be loved than feared. With that in mind, you should be very, very in love with what's about to happen.

Welcome to Night Vale.

Listeners, guess who went out with a certain scientist named Carlos yesterday! It's me; he is my boyfriend, after all. Wow, that's still so weird to say! Boyfriend. Boyyyyy-frrrrrriennnnnd. Isn't it funny how we can contort our lips, tongues, and throats to communicate complex concepts?

All right, we didn't do anything too fancy. I only have so much time off from work, and he has important science he needs to do, so we just went for a walk.

…which I will tell you about later, listeners, as Station Management, though I have never seen any face or faces it might have, is _clearly_ glaring at me. Onto the news.

The staff of Dark Owl Records—

Listeners, I have just been handed a flower. I cannot say which specific flower, only that you are not thinking of the right one. Tattooed on its petals is the following message:

The Sheriff's Secret Police has asked me to inform everyone that last week's Leopard Incident _did not happen._ Any scratches deep in concrete walls, inextinguishable plumes of fire, or sudden allergic reactions to leopard fur are acts of the Old Gods, and thus your own problems. Again, last week's Leopard Incident did not, in _any way_ , occur, and you should probably focus on other things that are real.

The staff of Dark Owl Records has announced that the store will be closed until further notice because of the inextinguishable plume of fire directly in front of the doorway. They had previously said that they would be closed for a week at most, but that was before they realized that the plume of fire could not be put out by any means accessible to humans, including water, sand, purpose-made chemicals, large pot lids, bloodstone chanting, and stern disapproval.

Owner Michelle Nguyen said that this was good because it prevented fake music fans from entering the store, but bad because "like, everyone is doing inextinguishable plumes of fire right now? It's totally played out."

Once they get permission from the city to dig up the sidewalk, they should be able to carry the plume and the concrete to which it is permanently affixed to an area outside town where, coincidentally, everyone else has been taking any inextinguishable plumes of fire they might have found recently.

Listeners, we just got our mail, and the new intern, Rhys, is reading it to Station Management. I think Station Management may be… distracted. Now I can tell you about my afternoon with Carlos!

The sun had just risen, and Carlos and I were walking through Mission Grove Park, hand in hand. We were both wearing our gas masks, of course, as the proprietary nerve agent released by the Sheriff's Secret Police during last week's Leopard Incident—again, that's the Leopard Incident which _did not happen_ —takes a little while to dissipate, and violent convulsions or involuntary blasphemy can really spoil the romantic mood.

Carlos was not wearing any one of the mask designs foreordained by the City Council to prevent exposure to blood curses, claiming something about "activated charcoal" and "OSHA compliance," but we must forgive him for that, as he is still new to our ways, and in any case, you're much more likely to drink a blood curse than inhale it, so he should be fine?

We were discussing perfectly normal things for new _boyfriends_ to discuss, like our favorite times of day—his is a quiet sunset, mine is the inky depths of a night that has perhaps lasted eons—or what improvised weapon we would be most likely to use in the event of a city-wide invasion. Mine would be the chair I'm sitting on right now, as I can reach it without interrupting the broadcast, and, listeners, Carlos told me that while he abhorred the thought of such violence, he'd probably construct an _explosive_ out of his _lab equipment_.

Isn't he so _resourceful_?

Around then, Carlos stopped walking, and of course, since he was holding my hand, I had to stop as well. "How do you do that?" he asked me.

"Do what?" I replied.

"You're walking on uneven terrain with your eyes closed, and you haven't tripped over anything," he said, as if this were remarkable. Obviously, I learned sightless navigation in elementary school, like everyone else. "Eyes tell lies," said the posters on every wall of my second grade classroom. "Do not trust them! Let yourself be guided by the thought impressions of Night Vale's various sentient landmarks. Use your freakish ability to sense light through holes in your head only when indoors to prevent others being drawn into your self-deception!"

They were very large posters.

I told Carlos all this, and he made one of those "huh!" noises people make when they want to sound like they might approve of what someone has just said, but they are not very convincing.

I asked why he had brought it up.

He told me that he had only been taught to walk with his eyes _open_ , which is apparently commonplace outside Night Vale for those with the ability, and that when someone is blind, they navigate using the vibrations of a cane or the assistance of an animal who functions as their "seeing eyes," rather than relying upon psychic architecture.

Now, I know what you're thinking, listeners, or, at least, I can guess with some level of accuracy: how does the person see through the animal's eyes? Was that knowledge not lost to the desert sands after an event of which we no longer speak? You know. The one that gives you nightmares which you only remember upon waking as deja vu, but with a duplication of space instead of time?

I had the same question, and he says they don't. The person and the animal just... walk around together, and the animal tells the person what is in their shared vicinity. He did not specify _how_ this is communicated, but presumably through Morse code or a similar simple cipher.

Listeners, sometimes we have to remind ourselves that just because a culture is different from our own does not make its people lesser or foolish. Maybe, if I were to visit Carlos's hometown, I would find there's a really good reason everyone has to navigate using physical evidence of the ground. Perhaps the ground is not always corporeal, or is covered in killer ants. Perhaps all residents wear anti-telepathic headgear to prevent impending psychic attack. We must not be quick to judge.

Ahem. Station Management is—aah!—indicating to me that I should get back to the news. Luckily for you, listeners, the pitch of its keening is not transmitted through the radio; it is quite painful. There is blood dripping onto my desk, and I'd rather not know from where.

Let's go to the community calendar. It seems like we have a pretty busy week ahead of us!

Tuesday and Thursday will happen, and, as such, be experienced, simultaneously to resolve a scheduling conflict. You will do different things in each. You will _not_ be informed which is which.

This week is Free Scoop Week at the White Sand Ice Cream Shoppe! For some reason, they have a whole lot of butterscotch pine ice cream that they need to get rid of, like, a _lot_ ; their walk-in freezers are so full, you can't, well, walk in. So stop on by and get yourself a free scoop! I know I will. I'm not questioning it, and neither should you.

On Saturday, the concept of consciousness will be shut down for maintenance from 4:00 AM to 3:59 PM. We will all come to ourselves in a daze to find that we have been awake for some time, actually, and have done many things we have no knowledge of. We will all feel deep shame, for reasons we cannot articulate, about situations we did not, technically, experience.

Sunday is unremarkable. That's… what it says on the sheet. Apparently, it's _so_ unremarkable that the sheer magnitude of its unremarkability is, itself, remarkable. Huh!

On Monday, Big Rico's Pizza will be hosting a live musical performance. There will be no performer, just a 90-minute set of all your favorites emanating from a cold spot on the floor.

Oh, and Wednesday will be an afterthought. This has been the community calendar.

And now, a message from our sponsor.

Look around you. What do you see? What do you hear? What do you feel?

Are you with others? Are you alone?

Are you sure?

Are you in a safe place? Please, are you _in_ a _safe_ place? Can you find a way out? Why won't this door open? Can anyone hear you?

Anyone?

Jarritos soda, made with 100% real sugar.

This has been a message from our sponsor.

Intern Rhys, do you hear that? That loud roaring, like a—

Listeners, I am receiving an update to our previous story, in the form of a different flower. You are really bad at imagining flowers today!

The Sheriff's Secret Police has released another statement: The Leopard Incident, which did not happen last week, is _especially_ not happening again right now. The screams of humans—and the roars of what are _certainly not_ giant, pyrokinetic, genetically engineered leopards _or_ leopard-like entities from another plane—are _completely unrelated_ and probably imaginary.

"You should take up a hobby," the statement read. "Maybe needlework? Gardening? I don't know. Something to take your mind off this leopard business. It's not real, you know, so why do you care so much?"

Well, glad to know that we have nothing to worry about, right, listeners? Oh—oh no.

To the loved ones of Intern Rhys, my deepest condolences. I would say his body has been almost completely eradicated, save some teeth and a _lot_ of blood, by what is either a giant, genetically engineered leopard or a leopard-like entity from another plane, but as I am told and must, legally, believe such things are imaginary, I can only describe it as an act of the Old Gods…

Listeners, something is in the studio with me now. I cannot tell you what it is. I can only grab my chair, shut my eyes, and take you, dear listeners… to the weather.

[[Pique - H.U.M.A.N.W.I.N.E.](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZejOoYONYOs)]

Night Vale, the weather is over, and I am still here. Hopefully, you too are still here, metaphorically speaking. Carlos is here, literally speaking, drinking a cup of coffee in the break room. He _heard my broadcast,_ listeners, and came to my aid! He poured a test tube into a beaker, then flung the beaker at the presence in my studio. And then it ran away! Or vanished, or… something! My boyfriend saved me!

Once we vented out the smoke and swept up the glass, I asked him what he had done, partly from curiosity and partly because I didn't see it, what with my eyes being closed. "I just threw a firework that I made with science," he said. "Big cats will typically give up on confusing prey." And then I laughed at his joke, because of course that wasn't a cat of _any_ description! And _certainly_ not a leopard, or a leopard-like entity! Such a funny joke he made _right next_ to a cleverly disguised recording device!

He laughed, too, but not the same way, and said he needed to sit down. I would have offered him a chair in the booth if he wanted the company, but as all of the chairs that were _in_ the booth appear to have been mangled by some great beast, I myself am crouching in front of the microphone. Don't worry, Shawn from sales is making sure Carlos is doing okay.

I've learned some things today, listeners. First, you can't just rely on improvised weapons in the event of a city-wide invasion! You need to also _have_ weapons on hand, ever vigilant against innumerable threats! In this case, this means I may need to start keeping a knife at my desk, besides the one I use exclusively for bloodstone sacrifice, of course. You can't use those knives for just _any_ old thing.

But I've also learned that your weapons need not just be… weapons, improvised or premeditated. Your voice can be a weapon. Your community can be a weapon. Your beautiful hero boyfriend, armed with homemade fireworks, can be a weapon. Love itself can even be a weapon, though keep in mind you will require a license to use it.

Speaking of which, I will be taking the rest of the day to spend time with the ones I love. Maybe we'll get some butterscotch pine ice cream. Stay tuned for a comforting, atonal hum.

Good night, Night Vale, good night.

**PROVERB: If you tell the truth, you don't have to remember anything, as we will remove the knowledge with spy satellites.**

**Author's Note:**

> Please consider leaving a nice comment on a fic that doesn't have a lot. I'd like some, too, but it doesn't have to be mine! As a writer, I don't really notice kudos, but even a short and simple comment can make my day. And a long comment? That might just make my week. This probably applies to other writers as well.
> 
> I don't remember to do this as often as I should, so I'm hoping to pay it forward by reminding myself and my readers.


End file.
